“I was taken with Laura’s vision and this female character that was unlike any I’d experienced before,” Schilling, 34, said. “Yes, people see Kate coming and they certainly do run — and that is something that I loved about her.

“We weren’t interested in making her likable, it was just being honest.”

About what exactly?

“About a woman who is not valuing domesticity in the way we culturally expect,” Schilling answered. “She’s basing her worth on accomplishment and not apologizing for it. It doesn’t make her particularly likable but relatable.”

Kate may be a contemporary cutthroat but isn’t she a type that goes back to Dickens’ Scrooge, the self-centered, arrogant cynic who is nevertheless changed in a positive way?

“I know Laura was inspired by ‘Bad Santa.’ She loves that character and was interested in creating a female that was just as brash.”

Schilling found that Kate, who is particularly memorable in her nasty face-offs with Kate McKinnon’s pushy neighbor Jill, was not easy to forget once the film finished.

“She was very intense, it was kind of uncomfortable and it took a little bit of time to get rid of her.”

Now that Schilling has finished filming the final season for “Orange,” she is ready to move on.

“I think it’s time,” she said as she now looks “for the right thing. It’s an exciting time. I trust whatever life has to offer, I’m always open to whatever comes next.

“I love having a day that’s unplanned, being able to spend time with friends or read or go out and explore nature with my dog.”

She’s done just that in her portrayal of the queer and rather unlucky prison inmate Piper Chapman on Netflix’s Emmy award-winning show, Orange Is the New Black, which comes to an end later this year. And it’s what she’s hoping to do with Family, her latest dark comedy released April 19.

“The stories that speak to me the most always celebrate otherness and create a human narrative around characters we otherwise find on the margins, bringing them closer to home and making the unacceptable more acceptable,” Schilling tells OprahMag.com. “That journey is what’s exciting at this point in my life—bridging the gap between us and them, even in small ways.”

For Schilling, one of the things she loved about the movie was that it shows there’s a group for everyone. “We have our family of origin and we have our chosen family. And something that I love about the movie is that it really seems to make the case that wherever you are or whoever you are, there is a community that will accept you exactly the way that you are… regardless of where you come from,” she told Newsweek.

One of Schilling’s favorite scenes in the film is when Kate and Maddie meet up at the gathering of the Juggalos, which is a festival for fans of the group the Insane Clown Posse. “Kate is really able to level with Maddie and says, ‘Nobody is perfect… nobody has it all together,’” she said.

Though the Orange is the New Black star hadn’t listened to ICP before, she referred to them as “awesome” and said filming with them was an “adventure.” “They are terrific musicians. They have sold a lot of records and impacted a lot of people’s lives,” she said. “They’re very kind.”

Though she’s moved on from OITNB, landing the role of Piper Chapman has changed her life. “I’ve been so honored to work on the show and meeting the women that I’ve met–those relationships have really changed my life. I’ve just expanded; I’ve expanded my reach, hugely. Orange has changed my life,” she said. “[The show] was kind of revolutionary in that it made room for a lot of different people to feel seen and have their voices heard.”